As you can see it is hard to tell where the garage is, it blends in, but a closer look shows that it is to the left of the picture, but it looks as if it's just part of the house, and its regular "living" use. It adds to the perceived size of the house.
Once again it is hard to tell where the garage is, it is assimilated into the house to the point where the use of the particular space is blurred.For the most part J.B. Jackson's evolution of garages seemed very accurate and interesting. The only thing that seemed to be missing, obviously, would be the time after Jackson wrote. Maybe we don't give the topic of garages much thought because when we look at a house we don't realize what's the garage and what's the house, thats exactly the point. I though it was funny when he wrote on page 124:
"The added massiveness, the magazine suggested, would make for a more impressive house, and the three garage doors would imply three cars and a corresponding larger income. Surely these are very out-of date concepts, long since abandoned by the prospective home owner."
In fact that is what has changed since Jackson's writing, homeowners have gone back to that, or recreated that entirely. They do that to suggest a larger and better house, and thus indirectly a larger income and higher social status. I actually was just taking a drive in the country this weekend and it was so beautiful and of all the houses I saw tucked away in the trees, the one I remember now is the one when I said "hey look, a three car garage, man that's huge." The fact is since two car is the norm three car garages do impress us even more. But it doesn't have to be a three car garage to lend importance to the house. The subdivisions in the burbs all have two car garages directly attached and add to the size of the house, if they were not there, the houses would look alot smaller. In the case of my house and many other houses, the garage is totally integrated to the point where its the main entryway to the house, and I live above it directly connected to the upstairs. Its our creation as homeowners to instill a grander scale to our houses with the use of garages, even though for the most part, room for storage, and as Jackson said, could be called a warehouse.
I understand the sentiment completely regarding the banality of the modern suburb, the "sitcom suburb" as it was referred to in our reading. Yet as you read the piece of Jackson's regarding Ray's new house, I'm not sure we can help but wonder whether we did this to ourselves. The most staggering thing about Jackson's article was how deeply it contrasted the point of view of 50's America with 00's America about the use of suburbs. It seems it popular culture now, or even on campus, everyone hates the suburb, everyone hates the big chain, and everyone hates walmart (lower case on purpose). But what is underscored throughout the whole piece is that these sorts of characteristics where the exact reasons for the founding of suburbs. It seems clear that after the Great Depression and The Second World War somebody somewhere had the bright idea of saying to themselves "hey, lets make a place with safety and security!" and they did with the suburb. Most of all it gave the security of convenience, as Jackson said "convenience was all that mattered." The people of the time wanted this so bad, the detachment from work, the freedom of "no distinct code of behavior or set of standards." The ability to go to school close, or the hospital fast if needed, and the availability of commercial markets.